How to Repurpose Content
All great content creators know that repurposing your content gets you the most value out of it. So, here are our tips on how to repurpose content for the best (and easiest!) results.
Many moons ago I went to high school with a fabulous artist Daniel Clemment who finds materials and creates the most incredible sculptures out of them. I've always been in awe of his resourcefulness and there are others who are doing the same thing on an even grander scale.
Beyond Retro is a vintage retailer. They gather vintage pieces and sort through thousands and thousands of pieces to find the few that are worthy of the shop. But the other pieces aren’t just thrown into a landfill. Instead, they are upcycled into fabrics that are redesigned into new pieces. This is a sustainable business practice and one that’s good for the business and the planet.
Just like great businesses recycle their materials and products, great content creators do the same. And most of us are aware that we need to ‘leverage’ or repurpose our content to get the most value out of it, yet, many of us don’t.
Instead, too often we create a piece of content, pop it onto social media, and then that’s it… until the next week, or month when we do the same thing again. The problem with this approach to content creation is that it takes a lot of work, and achieves very little impact. Then it becomes not sustainable. And soon we find we’re hitting a wall, finding that we don’t have time, energy, or ideas to keep creating content.
Repurposing your content is the better way to create impact, longevity, and sustainability within your practice.
How to Repurpose Content
Leveraging and Distributing Content
The first steps to repurposing content is, of course, capturing your idea and then creating your first piece of content. But if you’ve been posting on social media, you’ve already got this part down. It’s the follow up where things often get lost.
Thomas Edison said, ‘To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk’. When you repurpose content you’ve already got your pile of ‘junk’ (though hopefully, it’s not really junk). Now you just need to use your imagination.
Instead of distributing it once – for example, through a single social media post – think about all the other places that you could distribute it as well. This could be direct to people in your network, as part of an e-book, in a newsletter, or even as a tweet. There are so many options, and ensuring that you get your content out through all those different platforms means that you create a bigger and better impact.
The Lifespan of Content
When you repurpose your content, you’ll want to keep in mind the lifespan of each platform:
Blog post = 2 years
Pinterest post = 4 months
YouTube videos = 20 days
LinkedIn post = 24 hours
Instagram post = 21 hours
Facebook post = 5 hours
Tweet on Twitter = 18 minutes
Understanding the lifespan gives you confidence in reusing that piece of content. If you’ve put it on LinkedIn within a day it’s going to be old news, and if you put it on Facebook, it’ll only take a few hours. Using that piece of content again, and again, just gives you more value out of the work that you’ve already done.
50 Places You Can Repurpose Your Content
If you’re just getting started learning how to repurpose content, here’s a list of 50 places and ways you can repurpose your content. How many of these have you used?
1. Website copy
2. Blog posts
3. Newsletter
4. Personalised emails
5. E-book
6. In person
7. Pinterest
8. YouTube
9. LinkedIn personal
10. LinkedIn business
11. Instagram
12. Facebook personal
13. Facebook business
14. TikTok
15. Twitter
16. Snapchat
17. Quora
18. Whitepaper
19. App
20. Licensing
21. Medium
22. Book
23. Online course
24. Webinar
25. Workshop
26. Google Business Profile
27. Infographic
28. Opt-in
29. Activity book
30. Quiz
31. Diagnostic
32. Slideshare
33. Facebook group
34. LinkedIn group
35. IGTV
36. Instagram story
37. Facebook story
38. Podcast
39. Interview
40. Case studies
41. Media release
42. Editorials
43. Guest blogs
44. Influencer outreach
45. Follow up emails
46. Email signature
47. Conduct research
48. Content-rich job listings
49. Google+ post
50. Google hangouts on air
Where to from here....
Now that you know how to repurpose content, it’s time to get started.
Create that core piece of content.
Consider all the different platforms and things that you can do to repurpose that piece of content.
Distribute that content with confidence.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on how to repurpose content….
Jane Anderson is a strategic communications expert, speaker, consulting coach and the author of 11 books including Catalyst Content.
With over 20 years of experience helping people to communicate confidently, she is obsessed with authentic influence and human connection to drive business growth in a world of disruption and automation.
Jane delivers Content Creation Bootcamps (Virtual and Face to Face), coaching and keynotes. To inquire about her working with you or your organisation please contact us here.